‘Use Immunity’ Sought For Accused Attorney
The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office is asking a judge to give “use immunity” to attorney David Hernandez, who is accused of tampering with evidence in connection with the Region III Housing Authority scandal, so he can testify against codefendants in the case.
However, Hernandez, a former State Bar president who was one of the housing authority’s attorneys, has not entered a plea agreement with prosecutors and won’t, said his attorney Robert Cooper.
“I have always said David was a witness and should not have been indicted. But that’s not the way it happened,” Cooper said.
The case was indicted in 2009 against Hernandez, Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos, the former director of the housing authority, and its former CPA Dennis Kennedy. Gallegos and Kennedy are charged with fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. Hernandez, who faces only the
evidence-tampering charges, was severed from the consolidated trial against the other two, currently set for October before presiding criminal Judge Reed Sheppard.
A motion filed this week asks for use immunity so Hernandez can testify and produce billing records and invoices from Hernandez and Associates P.A. in late 2004 and early 2005 to the housing authority, invoices from Hernandez in January and February 2005 to Housing Enterprises Inc. and correspondence and drafts of forms.
Hernandez was present at the meeting of the board of directors of Housing Enterprises Inc. at which the board “ostensibly ‘approved’ the loan of $300,000 to Gallegos,” and also advised the board and prepared consent forms for board members, the motion says.
“Hernandez testimony and the described records and documents are necessary to the public interest, in that such are necessary for the jury to have a fair and accurate view of the facts relevant to their consideration of the issues at trial,” Assistant Attorney General Chris Lackmann says in the motion.
Housing Enterprises Inc. and the Region III Housing Authority are the two corporations that prosecutors allege Gallegos and Kennedy used to commit the fraud, embezzlement, money laundering and conspiracy.
Without the immunity grant, Hernandez is likely to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refuse to testify or produce records.
Defendants tried unsuccessfully to have the Attorney General’s Office removed as prosecutor because of the office’s attorney-client relationship with the State Investment Council.
The housing authority allegedly misspent money intended to buy and renovate homes for low- and moderateincome families on items like a private club membership and booze, according to a 2009 state audit. In 2006, it defaulted on bonds that it sold to the State Investment Council.
Cooper said his client was ordered by Attorney General’s Office investigators to produce documents, but he was unable to locate all the documents they asked for and was subsequently indicted.